Video of Gary play battlefield 2 - up to now he has spent approx 140 hours fighting a simulated war against others online. There are no giant American babies in this video though, Only guns, tanks and helicopters. As the lecture notes state, "we are now all enlisted in the war on terror". The game allows you to participate in the spectacle of war, without actually having to endanger your life by really fighting in it. Since 9/11, but not limiting the cause of our interest strictly to this event, as we must consider the gulf war, sarajevo etc, we have all fallen prey to the spectacle created by war, we are all interested in being engaged in it on one way or another, but for most people this doesn't involve rushing down to our local recruiting office to sign up, but joining in the spectacle by watching television news coverage, playing war themed video games, etc etc. Video games and tv allow us "heightened experience" of war in the words of Baudrillard, but to quote him again, they make us "profoundly indifferent" to it, as we cannot fully recognise the full horror of it. During and after 9/11, news coverage showed us images of the planes, people hurling themselves from the towers, people being pulled from the reckage, and we had a much more detailed experience of what it looked like from the outside than those involved, but we could not empathise properly with those involved, as we were not. The news coverage was deliberately dramatic in order to capture our attention and stir up our emotions, but unless we were involved, we can never begin to imagine to full horror of it. At the end of the video I have posted, Gary's soldier is killed - he is able to engage in warfare without any of the blood, gore and devastation that you would expect: the game just resets itself whenever he dies. Modern warfare for the modern man. probably not unlike Iraq, as it was a war of technology, and there was very little enemy to enemy combat.
The Tazer promotional video on youtube encourages thought - who are they marketing the product to? hopefully just the military, and not civilians, as although it is not life threatening, it could have serious consequences if it were available freely. obviously it gives maximum control without being life threatening, but this raises questions as to whether the military would go around tazering all who appeared threatening. As the video states, it is often difficult to distinguish the enemy from innocent civilians so could tazering everyone actually give them the answer?
